Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for two counts of felony possession of a firearm. Defendant was sentenced to the minimum fifteen years required by the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), based on his prior Louisiana conviction of simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling.The court held that, although the district court committed a Rehaif error, defendant is not entitled to relief because he has not shown a reasonable probability that, but for the error, he would not have entered the plea. Therefore, defendant has not shown that the district court's error affected his substantial rights. The court also held that Louisiana simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling is not broader than generic burglary. Accordingly, defendant's conviction for Louisiana simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling qualified as a predicate offense subjecting defendant to the enhancement under the ACCA. View "United States v. Montgomery" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for possessing a firearm as a felon. The court held that, even assuming it was plain error under United States v. Rehaif not to require evidence of defendant's knowledge of his status as a felon, defendant has not shown that the error affected his substantial rights, much less that it undermined the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.In this case, defendant does not argue that he actually lacked knowledge of his status as a felon nor does he point to facts suggesting a possibility that he could have been unaware of his status; given the lengthy record of serious offenses that would have been introduced to the jury absent a stipulation, the court is confident that if Rehaif had been decided when his case went to trial, defendant would have stipulated to both the felon-status element and the knowledge-of-felon-status element to keep the jury ignorant of the inculpatory details otherwise required to prove knowledge of felon status; and, while the other evidence urged by the Government are not conclusive of defendant's knowledge, they do lend further support to the court's conclusion that there is no reasonable probability that a properly instructed jury viewing the evidence actually admitted at trial would have returned a different verdict. View "United States v. Reed" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of aiding and abetting wire fraud. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to provide a rational jury with more than sufficient grounds to conclude that defendant did not sincerely believe he had a legitimate, unwritten agreement with the City.The court also held that the district court did not err in declining defendant's requested jury instructions where the jury instructions substantially covered defendant's good-faith defense because they accurately described the intent requirements for the charges against him; defendant was allowed to argue at trial that he acted in good faith according to an unwritten agreement that abandoned hourly billing, and thus his ability to present his defense was not seriously impaired; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to give defendant's fill-in-the-blank instruction. Finally, the court rejected defendant's challenges to the district court's loss calculation, holding that the district court did not err in its application of USSG 2B1.1(b)(1) and that defendant must pay restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. View "United States v. Comstock" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for reduction of sentence under the First Step Act. The court held that defendant is not excused from the statute's textual requirement that she file a request with the Bureau of Prisons before filing her motion in federal court. The court held that the statute's requirement that a defendant file a request with the BOP before filing a motion in federal court is a nonjurisdictional claim-processing rule. The court joined three other circuits in holding that the statutory requirement is mandatory. The court noted that defendant remains free to file, in the first instance, a request with the Bureau of Prisons. View "United States v. Franco" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress the evidence found during the forensic search of his cell phone. After determining that it had jurisdiction to hear the merits of the appeal, the court held that the border agents had a good faith, reasonable belief that they could search defendant's phone without obtaining a warrant. In this case, the CBP agent knew defendant had attempted to cross the border with two women who were carrying four cans that physical inspection and x-rays revealed to be suspicious; a K-9 unit had alerted the agents to the presence of narcotics in the cans, and defendant had implicated himself as the purchaser of the cans' contents; and thus there was clearly a particularized and objective basis for suspecting defendant of criminal activity. View "United States v. Aguilar" on Justia Law

Taylor pleaded guilty as a felon in possession of firearms. The “offense conduct” section of the PSR includes information about Taylor’s involvement in shootings on August 12 and 13, 2017, and information regarding an August 15, 2017 traffic stop of a vehicle in which Taylor was a passenger during which officers found Taylor in possession of firearms. The PSR also listed four pending state charges, including weapons charges and attempted second-degree murder. The district court imposed a 120-month sentence.The Fifth Circuit remanded the sentence. The district court erred when it attempted to reduce the length of his sentence either by ordering that the sentence should commence on a particular date or by ordering that he be given credit for time served. The attempt was ineffectual; the district court must consider, and state on the record, whether that court would have imposed the same sentence regardless. The sentence was also impermissibly ambiguous because the pronouncement that it “run concurrently with any sentence imposed by state authorities” does not specify with which state sentence or sentences, corresponding to four pending state court charges, the federal sentence will run concurrently. View "United States v. Taylor" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to set aside his conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court granted a certificate of appealability on defendant's claim that before he pleaded guilty, he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial attorney underestimated the range of imprisonment recommended by the Sentencing Guidelines.The court held that defendant failed to show prejudice where the evidence does not support defendant's assertion that there is a reasonable probability that he would not have pleaded guilty if he had been adequately counseled as to his actual Guidelines sentencing range. In this case, the record indicates that defendant's decision to plead guilty at the eleventh hour was logically motivated by the exposure of evidence which proved fatal to his affirmative defense, all but guaranteeing a conviction at trial, without any possible sentencing benefits he knew might be available with a plea of guilty. View "United States v. Valdez" on Justia Law

After defendant was convicted for a drug trafficking offense but failed to appear for sentencing, he was subsequently apprehended and convicted separately for failing to appear. The Fifth Circuit vacated defendant's 108 month sentence. The court held that the relevant amendments, including those to the commentary to Sentencing Guidelines Manual 2J1.6, make sufficiently clear that, though a failure-to-appear-for-sentencing offense is grouped with an underlying offense for purposes of sentencing, the failure-to-appear offense remains a separate offense, and an incremental, consecutive punishment for the failure to appear in court is applied under the Guidelines. In this case, the district court did not err by grouping the failure-to-appear offense with the underlying drug offense in accordance with USSG 3D1.2(c) and section 2J1.6.However, the district court erred in concluding that a second advisory sentencing range of 108 to 120 months applied separately to the conviction for failing to appear for sentencing. The court held that the error is clear in light of the Guidelines and affected defendant's substantial rights, seriously affecting the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Therefore, the district court committed a plain procedural error in determining the sentence for defendant's failure-to-appear conviction. The court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Izaguirre" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit vacated defendant's conviction for felony criminal contempt. The court first held that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 42(a)(3) does not apply to this case because the particular conduct that led to defendant's contempt charge was his refusal to testify, rather than an instance of "disrespect toward or criticism of" Chief Judge Brown. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion to recuse under 28 U.S.C. 455(a).In this case, the government concedes that an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) made numerous improper remarks, but contends that defendant failed to show that the prosecutorial misconduct prejudiced him. The court held, however, that the magnitude of the misconduct was overwhelming; the district judge did little to intervene or offer cautionary instructions; and it is impossible to separate the AUSA's misconduct from the other evidence against defendant. Therefore, defendant has shown a constitutional error and that he is entitled to relief under any standard of review. View "United States v. Beaulieu" on Justia Law

After finding that defendant violated three conditions of his release by assaulting and robbing another with a firearm, the district judge revoked defendant's supervised release. Defendant argued that the district court erred in considering the victim's out-of-court statements without specifically finding good cause to contravene defendant's right to confrontation.The Fifth Circuit held that the district court's failure to make a specific good cause finding is not plain error because it is neither clear nor obvious that a court is required to make such a finding where the defendant makes no hearsay or confrontation objection. Furthermore, because of the nature of the particular hearsay at issue, defendant cannot show that the district court's omission—were it a clear error—affected his substantial rights. View "United States v. McDowell" on Justia Law